Heroes Of Dragon Age Announced By EA

Today EA revealed a previously unannounced Dragon Age title. Heroes of Dragon Age is a free-to-play game in development for mobile devi - where are you guys going? Come back!

Heroes of Dragon Age tasks you with building a party of characters and battling your way across Ferelden. The mission selection screen in one of the images below makes mention of the Fifth Blight. That's the darkspawn invasion depicted in Dragon Age: Origins. Anders, a companion in expansion Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening and Dragon Age 2, is visible in another screenshot. Apparently he's one of the characters players can enlist in Heroes, along with DA:O squadmates Morrigan and Oghren.

It's unclear how the battles play out, exactly. Are they turn-based or real-time? Are we simply selecting commands for our units or is there a rhythm-based component to reward careful tapping? It's all a big mystery right now. We do know that characters will level up over time but that's not telling us a whole lot. I mean, even shooters have leveling these days.

Unlike the Dragon Age titles on console and PC, Heroes doesn't limit players to a party of humanoid adventurers. They can also enlist monsters in their journey. A battle screenshot shows a knight battling alongside a dragon and desire demon against undead and a spider. I doubt there are good story reasons for this motley crew. Heroes seems to be emphasizing strategy over plot.

EA also mentions a multiplayer component in their announcement. Players can go head-to-head with their custom squads, with the victor earning rewards and leaderboard position.

Heroes of Dragon Age isn't being handled by BioWare. Instead, the project has been farmed out to EA Capital Games. Capital is a mobile-focused studio based out of Sacramento, California.

EA will release Heroes this fall. They're planning to make the game available on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. An Android release is planned as well.

There's no mention of whether Heroes will have any links to Dragon Age: Inquisition, the upcoming third entry in the main series. The multiplatform RPG is said to have more freedom and customization than its predecessors. Inquisition is in development at BioWare and is due in 2014 on current- and next-gen consoles as well as the PC.